Macrofuran is widely used as an antibiotic for the treatment of urinary tract infections. Nevertheless, it is prohibited due to toxicity and environmental concerns. The development of a fast, simple, and cost-effective approach for the determination of macrofuran antibiotic (MFA) is still a challenge. Herein, we report a chemosensor based on a nano-lanthanum complex derived from phenylenediamine. The physicochemical properties and structure of the prepared complex were confirmed using different spectroscopic tools such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy equipped with EDX, elemental analysis, Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL). The nano-lanthanum complex was found to be chemically stable, highly sensitive and selective to MFA, without interference from other common antibiotics. The limit of detection for MFA was 0.025 ng mL-1, over a linear concentration range of 0.02-30.0 ng mL-1, with a correlation coefficient of 0.994. The nano-lanthanum complex can be used successfully as a promising chemosensor for MFA determination in pharmaceutical formulation and different biological samples (whole blood-serum-plasma). In addition, this approach will protect human beings from the environmental hazards of antibiotics through the detection of the low limit of MFA. Meanwhile, the mechanism of interaction between the nano-lanthanum complex and MFA was studied and investigated.
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